Death Cab for Cutie - Kintsugi: ALBUM REVIEW

This review comes at the request of a good friend. Which reminds me: if any of you reading have any requests for album reviews, playlists, listening suggestions, etc., by all means comment below!

Kintsugi is the eighth (wow, eighth!) studio album from indie rock kingpins Death Cab for Cutie, released this past March. It comes at a low point in the band's career and in the life of frontman Ben Gibbard: it's been years since their last successful album, Plans; second-in-command Chris Walla announced his departure from the band; and Ben is still in the wake of his divorce with his ex-wife, Zooey Deschanel.

It's understandable, then, that this album sounds moody and forlorn. The sadness even leaking into the symbolism of the album title -- kintsugi is a Japanese art form of repairing broken ceramics using flecks of gold.

Somehow, though, even with real loss and personal tragedy fueling it, the music ends up hollow and uninspired. As Ben chants on lead single "Black Sun" the chorus "How could something so fair be so cruel," I know why he's hurting, but I don't feel it. "You've Haunted Me All My Life" is bafflingly forgettable, when an earlier Gibbard would've spun gold from that song title alone.

Most of these songs, with about three exceptions, lack notable hooks, creative presentation, fresh ideas, artful compositions, or Death Cab's formerly-trademark clever and quirky lyrics. Listen to "Good Help (Is Hard to Find)" three times, wait a day, then hum it to me.

At its best, like on "Ghosts of Beverly Drive" and "Little Wanderer," Kintsugi shows the band locking together and creating memorable pieces of rock. Ben's imagery on the latter is reminiscent of his lyrical heyday, compiling a story of a modern, longing, long distance couple having separation anxiety and Skype issues, which was very relatable for my wife and I who basically lived six months of that. And "El Dorado" is probably the catchiest track on here. Definitely check out those three.

As a whole, the album can function as a statement by the band that the days of Manic Pixie Dream Boy rock are over. If that didn't do it, I think Ben hammered in that last nail at their performance at the Twilight Concert series this summer when he admitted to the audience with apparent chagrin, "I'm old enough now to be some of you guys' dads."

Death Cab are now focusing their creative energies on making Manic Middle Age Man indie adult contemporary (how's that for a genre?) So, if you want to forget Transatlanticism or The Photo Album and turn your head to the side and try to twist the point of view, then Kintsugi can be relevant. But if you look at it dead on, with the same cold starkness that Ben examines his life herein, you'll see broken porcelain and some gold flakes.

OVERALL SCORE: 5.8
Death Cab for Cutie – Kintsugi
1. No Room In Frame 2. Black Sun 3. The Ghosts of Beverly Drive 4. Little Wanderer 5. You've Haunted Me All My Life 6. Hold No Guns 7. Everything's A Ceiling 8. Good Help (Is So Hard to Find) 9. El Dorado 10. Ingenue 11. Binary Sea	O!HTT's COLORFUL SCORING SYSTEM 9-10 Holy. Crap. You must hear this song. One of the best of the year. 7-8 I'm so glad I have ears so that I can listen to this wonderful song. 5-6 Yeah, it's passable. Contributes to the vibe of the album, but not anything to write home about. 3-4 Ehh very mediocre or seriously flawed, there's a lot better music out there, or even on this album. 0-2 Good gravy, why must this song exist? One of the worst things that will enter your ears this year.

Tiny Reviews: Beach House, Deradoorian, The Sword, Destroyer, Panda Bear

Beach House - Depression Cherry

Oh man, what a disappointment. You'll remember from my "Get Pumped!" feature from August that this was one of the the albums I was looking forward to in the second half of the year. Beach House had enchanted my heart and ear with their beautiful, retro style of dream pop and Victoria Legrand's gorgeous alto voice. 2010's Teen Dream, my first Beach House record and definitely the zenith of their sound, hooked me in and set the bar high for whatever they would put out next. After 2012's Bloom, which was essentially more of the same, I was ready to see what else the band could do, and I definitely wasn't the only one getting tired of the same sparkly, dreamy keyboards and chord progressions.

Well, wouldn't you know it, with Depression Cherry, we get Teen Dream III: Revenge of the Synth (or Bloom II: Attack of the Clones). I didn't think they could do it or would do it, but they have taken the exact same songs with the exact same sounds and made the exact same record. I swear I've heard that electronic hi-hat in "Space Song" in fourteen other Beach House songs. And I'm not exaggerating. That's basically all there is to say about this album. Yes, it's beautiful sounding. Yes, it was interesting the first time. In fact, if you've never listened to Beach House before and are interested, this wouldn't be a bad place to start. But Teen Dream would be better and you'd get everything they give you here (five years later...)

Definitely Check Out: "Sparks"

OVERALL SCORE: 5.7
Beach House – Depression Cherry

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Deradoorian - The Expanding Flower Planet

A very surprising and fresh release. Deradoorian is the truncated nome-de-music of singer-songwriter Angel Deradoorian, who is basically exclusively known for her incredible vocal performance in Dirty Projectors' masterpiece Bitte Orca. You know, "Two Doves?" She sang that. This performance landed her rather unlikely spots on recent Flying Lotus and the Roots albums.

You may have, like me, held the assumption that Angel Deradoorian was only a folky, acoustic singer-songwriter type, especially after listening to her first solo album Mind Raft. One of the best qualities of The Expanding Flower Planet is how it absolutely destroys that assumption. There is hardly an acoustic or even folk song in sight.

In a lot of ways, Deradoorian's songwriting here continues the technically complex and often odd compositions of her former Dirty Projectors' bandleader Dave Longstreth. Opener "A Beautiful Woman" certainly shows it, as well as "The Expanding Flower Planet," "Grow" and my personal favorite "Your Creator." The latter sounds to me like it could be the beginning of a Battles song, it's that good.

If the whole album was as good as these four tracks, it would be one of my favorites of the year. Unfortunately, the other tracks on the album, while still technical and ambitious, are really boring and fall flat. "Komodo" and "The Eye" in particular come to mind. All in all, it's an extremely praiseworthy album with some incredible tracks that any Dirty Projectors, tUnE-yArDs, Glasser, The Knife, or Bjork fans will enjoy

Definitely Check Out: "A Beautiful Woman," "Your Creator"

OVERALL SCORE: 8.1
Deradoorian – The Expanding Flower Planet

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The Sword - High Country

At their best, The Sword have been a band that draw the best of 60's heavy metal, prog rock, and sludge metal and bring it into one place. Though grounded and often bogged down in very accessible and digestible blues progressions and melodies, what has set them apart from other bands similarly bogged down is their ear for writing good riffs, prog sensibilities, and interesting fantasy-inspired lyrics.

Unfortunately, on High Country, they shed all of these strengths and deliver an album that is almost entirely made up of entry level, dime-a-dozen blues rock. It's not even metal at this point; it's so watered down, this record could make for a bad Wolfmother or Birds of Avalon B-side collection. Some songs, like "Suffer No Fools," do exhibit their penchant for good riff writing, and the production remains sparkling clean and crisp as a bowl of Rice Crispies. But it's not enough to make this record really stand out in anyway.

BUT, as I said, it's almost entirely made of this bland blues rock, and if it was it wouldn't be that bad. The rest of the album, though? Well, I guess they realized they were writing themselves into a rut like this. So what did they do? Rather than scrapping these and writing actually good songs, they devoted their creative energies to completely awkward meanderings in random genres:

• synth rock on "Seriously Mysterious" 
• ska/rock-with-a-brass-section on "Early Snow" 
• and... hip hop on opener "Unicorn Farm"??? 

I don't know what is going on with that track but it makes me want to cry. And don't even get me started on these songs' lyrics...

Please, The Sword. What on earth happened?

Definitely Check Out: "Suffer No Fools," "Unicorn Farm" (just because it's that bad)

OVERALL SCORE: 4.2
The Sword – High Country

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Destroyer - Poison Season

You may have heard of Destroyer in the way I did: through frontman Dan Bejar's membership in the New Pornographers

However, that connection won't help you any on Poison Season: the two could hardly sound further apart on the indie spectrum. The New Pornographers are fun, bright, pop-y, and inexplicably tongue-in-cheek, like everything's a joke, including their band name.

Poison Season, though, is serious, heady, adult-ish, and inexplicably sober, even in its energetic and odd moments.

I have hardly heard an album that is as mature musically as this one: Dan Bejar has crafted a rich blend of adult contemporary, jazz, Latin, Springsteen-esque folk rock, and Billy Joel-esque poet rock. The lyrics give credence to calling Bejar a rock poet too: the beginning, middle, and end tracks, the three "Times Square's" feature the lines, "The writing on the wall/ Wasn't writing at all/ Just forces of nature/ In love with a radio station/ You can follow a rose wherever it grows/ Or you could fall in love with Times Square."

I'm still dissecting this beautiful, incredibly dense piece of music. But that density is one of the album's best characteristics. In fact, it's so dense, it took me 3 or 4 listens to feel any connection at all, like listening to Classical music is for me. But now, I'm finding the fun of this album is peeling back more layers with each listen. This is a release that any music lover, especially a lover of the above mentioned genres, should not pass up. Just be patient with it.

Definitely Check Out: "Times Square," "Dream Lover," "Solace's Bride"

OVERALL SCORE: 8.4
Destroyer – Poison Season

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Panda Bear - Crosswords EP

My honest opinion and review? I don't remember a single part of it. I listened to it four times and I can't tell you how one song goes.

This was essentially the case for me on Panda Bear vs. The Grim Reaper (PBVGR), the mother LP from which this EP comes. The dude's from Animal Collective, and Panda Bear in particular, are sliding into a very sad comfort zone. They blazed musical territory before them for their entire careers until the monumental Merriweather Post Pavilion, and since then, they've halted in the realm of bloopy, blippy psychedelic electronica. The fact that each LP since then (Centipede Hz, Avey Tare's Down There and Slasher Flicks, and Panda Bear's Tomboy and PBVGR) have had standout tracks shows that the guys are certainly talented and have it in them.

On releases like this, though... I can't help but feel Panda Bear's on auto-pilot. I sincerely hope they find their way out of this for the upcoming new Animal Collective album

Definitely Check Out: "No Man's Land" I guess?

OVERALL SCORE: 5.1
Panda Bear – Poison Season

ALBUM REVIEW: Incubus - Trust Fall (Side A)

2015 has, by and large, been a bad year for big name bands and, sadly, Incubus not only characterize this on their new EP; they epitomize it. There have been some mediocre efforts this year by alt rock all stars, like Modest Mouse, Muse, Blur, Imagine Dragons, and Death Cab for Cutie, but none of them quite reach the level of atomic failure like Trust Fall (Side A).

These other bands are, at best, maturing into a more subdued, comfortable sound than their genre pioneering days, and four years ago, with Incubus' release of If Not Now, When?, I would've argued the same thing about Incubus. Sure, they were mellowing out like a pack of old dogs, but in trading their signature, earworm one-two punch riffs with earworm adult contemporary grooves, they were crafting their own, new sound that I was willing to follow.

Now, however, Incubus have apparently abandoned both sounds, both promising career paths, and both camps of fans, and have made Trust Fall (Side A), four of some of the worst songs they've ever written. Abandoning all of the groove, maturity, and musicality they forged in their adult contemporary foray, but retaining all of the lameness, these songs are too weak and lifeless and sometimes downright awkward to be enjoyable as the alt rock tunes they're trying to be.

Let's take a look at them one by one:

"Trust Fall" 
This opening, title track begins promising enough. Guitarist Mike Einziger opens the song with colorful, atmospheric sounds, previewing the fact that his instrumentation is one of the best elements of this EP. But... then the actual riff kicks in like an ostrich tripping over itself, and Brandon Boyd opens his mouth and we're exposed to this once powerful and thoughtful singer/lyricist's now pedestrian whine. If you're thinking it's just this one song, or just this one verse, that is awkward and hard to rock to, you will be disappointed. Especially on track 2...

"Make Out Party" 
Yes, it's safe to assume from the title: this song is objectively THE worst Incubus song ever written. Imagine being invited over to a party by that weirdo girl/neckbeard guy who is obsessed with you to find it's just the two of you and, while lumbering, boring music plays, he/she starts singing to you, 
"Girl I wanna kiss you/ But not just on your lips, no/ Tips of your fingers and every intersection/ Start again, then at your pinky toe." 
Nope.

"Absolution Calling" 
In my opinion the best track on this album, but even then it only lives up to some of the most mediocre tracks on Light Grenades, the "Melodies" side of Monuments & Melodies, or even the soundtrack they did for the movie Stealth. Eniziger's riffs, Jose Pasillas' asymetrical beats, and the synth textures added, I assume, by Chris Kilmore, are blend together nicely into a rock song that is more for listening to and thinking about on headphones than bouncing and screaming along to in crowds. Now, finally, the most intriguing song on the album,

"Dance Like You're Dumb" 
If any of these songs could make a case for being a new, viable sound for Incubus, it's this one. It's energetic and fun, more than any of the prior three, but... energetic and fun in the way that Meghan Trainor or Katy Perry is. Maybe a more flattering and more accurate comparison would be the fuzzy, catchy, virile dance-punk of Death From Above 1979, but a lot poppier. Although not as immediately enjoyable as "Absolution Calling," this song probably gives me the most hope for this new trajectory of Incubus' career. Even if it's poppier and more simple than I know they can do, if they mine this dance-punk vein more and develop this catchy, high energy sound, I can see myself getting behind it. And by the way, that line: "Like a pink Boba Fett, she calls you on your bet"? Awesome. That's the Brandon Boyd I know.

Overall, to be simple, this EP was a huge disappointment for me. If I've sounded critical or even harsh, it's because I know these guys can do better. So much better.